The Omicron variant of the coronaviruses was labeled a concern by the World Health Organization on Friday.
The World Health Organization has used letters in the Greek alphabet to name the variant of the coronaviruses.
"'Nu' is too easily confused with 'new,'" said a WHO spokesman. "'Xi' was not used because it is a common last name."
The next letter was "omicron."
He told the outlet that the naming process will not cause offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.
The variant was labeled a concern by the WHO on Friday, but officials have stressed that little is known about it.
Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said at a briefing Thursday that they don't know much about this variant yet. The concern is that when you have so many changes in the variant, it can affect how the virus behaves.
The Greek letter and Chinese name are pronounced differently, but some right-wing figures criticized the WHO for not including the name of the Chinese President.
How can the WHO be trusted to call out the Chinese Communist Party if they are scared of them? Ted Cruz is a Republican from Texas.
The Greek letters "Alpha," "Beta," and "Gamma" were previously named variant of the coronaviruses. The Times reported that "Lamda," "Delta," and "Mu" were also named and considered by the agency. "Nu" and "Xi" were the only letters that had not been skipped.
Greek letters are valuable in naming the variant to avoid using the location where they were first discovered, which can be stigmatizing and discrimination, according to one researcher.
People used to call it the Spanish flu when it first started. Why don't we call it the Wuhan coronaviruses? Dr. Rasmussen is a researcher at the University of SASKATCHEWAN. The Spanish flu did not originate in Spain. We don't know where it came from, but there's a good chance it came from the US.
